A virtual port to come up outside Chennai port for swift movement of containers

A virtual port will come up soon outside the Chennai port premises at
Tondiarpet's CONCOR facility where both export and import containers get aggregated
and desptached to Container terminals in the port through railway rakes,
Chairman of the Port Mr P Raveendran told Sagar Sandesh in an exclusive
interview.

We are in the process of making an extended gate along the CONCOR facility
at Tondiarpet to facilitate the movement of direct port entry and direct port
delivery cargo through Rail Mr Raveendran said in an interview,

The railways have announced a concessional tariff of forty per cent for
moving the containers from Tondiarpet yard to the two Container Terminals in
the Port. The port has signed an MOU with Container Corporation of India for
this project. The port ready to implement the project but is waiting for the
green signal from the Customs, the Chairman said adding he is expecting the
customs clearance shortly.

Having achieved Direct Port Delivery of 20 per cent of the imported
containers during the last one year, the port has commenced from December one
Direct Port Entry of export containers for the first time from the Central
Warehousing Corporation yard at Tiruvottiyur. The customs have given the green
signal for this project he said adding that will smoothen the flow of Export
containers.

The direct port entry and delivery facility is being provided to large
manufacturing facilities where the cargo moves directly from the port to the
factory premises. The customs examination if need be will take place in the
factory premises. This will help the industry to reduce their investment on
inventories, besides ensuring smooth movement of cargo from the port to the
factory premises.

Nearly 20 per cent of the imports through Chennai Port is by Direct
Delivery system and the ports intends to step it up by forty per cent as part
of the ease of doing business with the trade.

The latest move of the port to reduce tariff for short haul feeder lines
has paid rich dividend in ensuring that the container traffic not only stayed
put amidst stiff competition from neighbouring ports but also made a marginal
increase of 5.5 per cent in September this year, compared to previous year.

To smoothen the movement of container traffic inside the port, the port had
open two entry gates at container terminals one for loaded tractor trailers and
the other for empty trailers.

Mr Raveendran said the two container terminals handled 7,89,657 TEUS during
the first six months of the current financial year (April-September) as against
7,48,381 TEUs during the same period in 2016. In the bulk cargo segment the
port handled seven lakhs tones more till November this year compared to same
period in 2016. There has been increase in iron and steel exports and handling
of refined petroleum products.

The Chennai based automobile major Ashok leyland has started exporting
trucks to Bangladesh on a regular basis. The first consignment of 185 trucks
was exported through the port to Moga in Bangladesh in October. Since then
there have been three shipments of trucks to Bangladesh from Ashok Leyland. The
other automobile majors are also considering exports to Bangladesh through
Chennai port.